assignment II ross

ASSIGNMENT 2

Collectivism is the ideology that the "whole" of the group is more valuable then the individual, and in this quote from Adolf Hitler, it is clearly evident, however there are many elements in how collectivism may be viewed as a negative ideology. In collectivism many individual principles disappear. These principles may be individual will, self-interest, and competition.

It is most likely that you wont reach your full potential in a collective society. In the source provided it states that, "The activities my not clash with the interests of the whole," however by doing so it neglects the individual self-interest. An example of this would be the country of Sweden. As a socialist state everything there must benefit the whole. There welfare community and taxes make it impossible to advance in the economy, everyone will remain equal. Individual interests such as economic freedom, private property and self-interest are gone. Individuals in this type of system no longer have a reason to try and advance their status, therefore no need to compete in society.

In a collective society all of the political and economic values are based upon cooperation so the simple principles of competition is lost, as well as economic freedom. Mainly resulting in cheap poorly made products. Cheap low wage labour is almost always used to make government cooperation's rich. Poor working conditions have been known in communist societies as well.

In the source provided it states," It must be the first duty of each citizen of the state to work with his mind or with his body.” In a collectivist society you're a member of the whole, everything you do must benefit the nation, if you don't benefit it there's no reason for you to be in that society. An example of this is in World War 2, the Jews didn't contribute to Hitlers Fascist collective society; his solution was the extermination of them. Violence to benefit the whole is not uncommon in collective societies. Such as Stalin , killing almost a million people for suspicion of been against his revolution, no trial, no proof just sent to their deaths immediately. There are cases of the government offering kids better schooling and better scholarships for turning in their parents if there talking negatively about government and of course there parents would be taken away to be removed. He also took away the hard earned land of farmers for government control with no compensation. However a few benefits arose from the communist Stalin, he gave women education as well as jobs and improved transportation by building new railways. (Stalin was a name given to him by the people meaning man of steel.)


A collective society may have its positives but the negatives will always out weigh them. Collective governments will take advantage of the workers and go to extreme measures to ensure society benefits over the individual. Violence and control is quite common as well as loosing many individual freedoms. The products you will get from a communist society will never compare to products from a individual society, only the best survive in a individual economy resulting in well made products. If you don't survive in the economy you find something you are good at.